AS MEDIA STUDIES

GENRE ____________

Science - Fiction

BySam, Tom, Matt and

Becky.

Theme/ Topic

The opening shot shows the earth from a space perspective which instantly gives away the genre. The genre iconography within this shot shows space and Earth, which are common factors for a sci-fi film.

Later on in the shot, it shows a bit of debris (satellite = technology) coming towards the camera at a fast speed which suggests the theme will have a sense of danger and survival.

What stops this film from being a documentary instead of a sci-fi is that this is fictional, all the elements of this film relate to science, but it’s fictional as it hasn’t happened, and would rarely happen.

Dialogue

The dialogue present in the opening scene are very technical and scientific. But they are natural, but may have been edited to make the sound of the dialogue sound muffled. In space there is no sound, and if the speech sounds like you're hearing it as if they are in the same room as you then it doesn’t give that feel to it.

Time Period

It’s safe to say that it’s not set in the past as one of the lines George Clooney says is “Half of North America just lost their Facebook” so to bring in something that is commonly used helps to identify the time period, and with the technology in the opening scene you can clearly say it’s not during the moon landing.

Sound - Music

As the opening scene starts to become more dramatic, the music becomes more tense, again helping to identify the hybrid genre. Science Fiction is the dominant genre but thriller can come into it and survival.

Sound

The only sounds are the speech and the music, it gives the feeling of danger as no one can hear you shout for help, it’s pure silence in space which can cause you to go a bit mad. Again limited sound to relate to the conventions of sci-fi.

Costumes

Due to the lack of locations, there isn’t much availability on costumes. The main one are spacesuits which support the genre conventions of the film being a science fiction film.

Character Types

Again there aren’t a range of characters, they have the two genders which is good as it shows that gender equality can occur anywhere, and in a sci-fi film it’s necessary to have gender equality. They all have scientific backgrounds, as they are astronauts they must have some link to science.

Camera Work

It’s all filmed in one shot, ranging from a mid shot, master shot, tracking shot etc. It helps to show the ideology within sci-fi, the conventions are things like space, planets, debris, technology and science.

Thank you for listening